Moderation Approaches to Alcohol Problems

Moderation training and the concept of moderation of drinking at safe levels as a resolution of problem drinking have a long history. Although still somewhat controversial in the United States, moderation training and moderation as a goal of treatment for problem drinkers have wide acceptance in most Western European countries, as well as in Canada and Australia. Historian of addictions treatment William White has identified self-help groups whose aim was promoting moderate drinking rather than abstinence as long ago as the 1880s in the United States. These groups, however, were overwhelmed by the political power of the American Temperance Movement, which focused on abstinence as the only acceptable goal for problem drinkers, and the notion of moderation as a resolution of drinking problems did not ...